Wednesday, July 05, 2006

But while we may be tempted to dismiss this finding as simply a fact of life in topsy-turvy Hollywood, research shows that believing in our illusory ability to control things that are actually determined by chance is a basic human failing:

The temptation to believe that you or others are causing chance events is so strong that psychologists coined a term for it: the illusion of control. In a classic study, psychologists Ellen J. Langer and Jane Roth recruited Yale undergraduate psychology majors to watch an experimenter flip a coin 30 times. One by one, the subjects watched the coin flips and tried to guess how the coins would land. They found that, although students at an Ivy League university are surely aware that a coin toss is a random event, those who experienced the early winning streaks developed an irrational attitude of confidence that they were "good" at intuiting the coin toss. Forty percent said their results would improve with practice; 25% even reported that, if in the future they were distracted during the test, their performance would suffer.

Now here's the rub--how is Silicon Valley any different from Hollywood in this respect? Does success make you a genius, or just lucky? Are Valley Gods like Steve Jobs really that much above us all, or are they simply six sigma events?

I like to believe in the possibility of genius, but I think a healthy skepticism is a good cure for hubris.

I won't get into the science of global warming. Global warming activists are right that our climate is getting warmer, and that carbon dioxide levels are higher than ever before. But global warming skeptics are also right that correlation is not causation.

What I will say is this: If you believe that global warming is a threat to mankind, the most important thing you can do is not to go out and buy carbon credits or to trade in your SUV for a Prius. The most important thing you can do is to find a way to change as many minds as possible.

Too expensive you say? Given that the total advertising costs for the Superbowl, America's biggest television event, run in the $100-200 million range, the cost would be enormous, but well within the reach of a George Soros or John Doerr.

And once you announced the plan, it would take on a life of its own, with the attendant media coverage of this surprise tactic bringing even more attention to the issues.

Of course, since Jackie's blog is far more widely read than this humble site, the analogy isn't quite the same. Link love freely given is the best of all.

So everyone in the Valley, Jackie will be in town from August 4th to August 13th. I know I'll make time to see her...will you?

"I’ll be in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley from August 4 - August 13. I will be hitting SES in San Jose from the 8th - 11th, and getting up to nothing but fun and trouble the whole time. Wanna hook up? Email me. I always meet so many interesting people when I come to the area, and have high hopes for this trip, too."